I just ended my junior year of high school and will be starting senior year in the fall. I’ve been looking into colleges for a long time now, but of course, now things get a lot more serious, as I will be applying in just a few months to some of my dream colleges. I am planning a few college tours within the next month or two, and I have been debating whether to do interviews with them or wait.
Grades and class rigor wise I feel all set to talk about, as well as volunteer/work/extracurricular activities. But the problem is my ACT/SAT scores are not the highest. I currently have a 26 on the ACT and 1160 on the SAT. I am planning on upping these as high as possible; the goal is a 30+ on the ACT (taking again June 9)
My question is, will my low test scores be a “red-flag” to the interviewer if I interview now, or should I ideally wait until fall when my test scores are higher and interview then? Or will it be beneficial to do it now and justify to the interviewer why they are so low?
Just for context, some of the schools I plan on touring and possibly interviewing at are: Kenyon, Oberlin, Case Western (home state), as well as URochester and Cornell (one of my dream schools, yes I know it is a reach)
Many schools wont offer interviews until after you application is submitted/received. Our experience for summer meetings were they were more about selling the student on the university rather than true interviews. If you are asked about your scores, tell them you are scheduled to take them in June and don’t have scores back yet.
The summer is a great time to interview on campus, especially for schools that want you to show interest and interview. Less rushed, etc. As for scores, the schools get that info separately and want to find out in the interview about you, so it’s not likely to come up. And saying you are waiting for scores is fine if it does.
My son interviewed from his April break of junior year through Rosh Hashanah weekend during senior year, on his initiative (and then one in October with an admissions officer who contacted him and met him near our home).
He only attended interviews that were evaluative and considered for the applications, not any information-only ones.
He had not submitted any applications prior to the interviews.
In fact, he ended up not applying to eight of the nine colleges where he had interviewed because he was accepted early decision to his top choice (which does not offer interviews).
Although the college may or may not have you fill out a pre-interview form on which you indicate your test scores, none of my son’s interviewers ever asked about test scores. The purpose of the interview is to find out the things about you that go beyond data they can see on the application. You will talk about your intellectual interests, your favorite classes, your most important activities, etc.— NOT your scores or GPA.
So, you may interview whenever it is convenient for you. No harm in waiting until the fall if you are anxious about the pre-interview form, but if you interview earlier, odds are your score won’t be discussed unless YOU decide to talk about it… and if I were you, I would not.
^… See my post above. But I guess you should be prepared to answer any questions about the score, just in case.
But the point of the interview is to get to know your personality a little bit and see how you would contribute to the school.
Also, a lot of interviewers seem to be college students working in the admissions office as opposed to the actual admissions officer who will judge your application.
In some cases, you may receive a note from an admissions officer afterwards, commenting that the student informed them about your interview and saying something like, “NAME was impressed by your interest in American political history. I have enclosed information about our history and political science departments,” or “NAME mentioned your impressive work with homeless people in your area,” or something of a similar sort.
I think every school sent a thank you email or letter of some sort. You should send one, too, of course.
I was worried about my test scores (which were mixed due to a rough sophomore spring for family reasons) and my interviews were a great chance to explain this in a more personal way. All my interviewers were super sympathetic. I am kind of socially awkward and was worried about the interviews, so I found this consultant on fiverr who worked in the Yale admissions office doing interviews and she helped me prepare and did a mock interview for me.
My D interviewed in the fall of her senior year. She was able to interview at schools before she submitted her application (she applied only to LACs - not sure if that makes a difference).
We found we had to fit the interviews into: 1) when we could get back to the school to interview on campus or 2) when we could fit into the schedule of admissions officer who was in our area or a local alumni. If you wait too long to schedule you may lose the opportunity to interview.
If your scores don’t go up very significantly (I hope they do) you should: 1) re-work your application list and 2) consider some test optional colleges https://www.fairtest.org/university/optional/state .
Yes, do them now if you can. Most colleges evaluate you on what you have done through junior year.
They will have your interview info and then you can retake the SAT/ACT (pick the one you did better on to study)
and then when you apply they will have all the info.
Don’t interview at any schools you care about before doing a practice interview or two. You don’t want your first time to be “for keeps”.
I would stay away from this. Few HS students have the experience or maturity to “justify” a problem without sounding like they are making excuses or casting blame.
Thank you all for all the advice! I am currently working on bringing my test scores up, but regardless I think I will wait until August or September to interview at instate schools ( Case Western, Kenyon, and any others I come across) and look into when I can interview at out of state schools.
Side note, I toured Kenyon a couple weeks ago and absolutely LOVED it. Admission officers ensured me that an interview will really give me a boost there so I will do one for sure
The summer is a good time to interview. Many people have said this already, but many interviewers are college seniors or alumni, and chances are they are not going to ask you about your test scores because the purpose of your interview is to “get to know you,” rather than ask you to explain stuff. Besides for the majority of schools it is before your application is submitted and they only have the information that you give them prior to your interview – for instance they might ask you what your intended major is or some activities you do prior to the interview so they can match you up with someone with similar interests.
The only reason I say the summer is better is because you will have more time to prepare and feel less stressed out, and if the interview happens to be with college seniors, you may have more time and are less time constrained than if they had classes right after or other things going on. From the sounds of it, you feel a bit nervous – so remember that the interview is not required at every school it’s optional. Something I did to help me practice is do interviews with less selective schools in the area first and then work my way up to the ones that I wanted to be the most prepared for. For instance if you are going to interview at Yale, you could do a practice interview with let’s say Connecticut College first.
